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Google workers arrested after protesting company's work with Israel
- mitchbob 3y agohttps://archive.ph/fE96t https://archive.ph/fE96t
- dunekid 3y agoLand of the free. Indeed it is.
- malta_kano 3y agonext time lets protest at your house / business :)
- dunekid 3y agoWell, fine. If you are a member of my family, and you think that the family is in cahoots with those commit crimes against humanity, you might as well do that. If you had a bit of conscience, I hope you at least implore of doing it.
- NeverFade 3y agoIn what form of government is a vocal minority of activist workers allowed to take over their employer's place of business? Please don't say "communism" as they would be sent to the gulag or worse in every communist regime that has ever existed.
- Animats 3y agoWhen that happened in Poland in 1980, the activist workers won.[1] That's one of the places where the downfall of the USSR began. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarity_%28Polish_trade_union%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarity_%28Polish_trade_uni...
- dh2022 3y agoOh please. USSR broke to pieces because of internal problems not because some Polish workers locked themselves up in a shipyard.
- sakjur 3y agoAnimats did not claim otherwise AFAICT. The forming of a union in Poland in 1980 is something I’ve been taught was one of the earliest public signs that Kremlin was losing its grasp over the east bloc. That’s not at all incompatible with Soviet falling apart due to internal problems.
- dh2022 3y agoWell I read Animats’ comment in the context of activism producing change - not in the context of activism being a symptom of change…
- sakjur 3y agoThe Czechoslovak velvet revolution in 1989 also comes to mind.
- cad31 3y agoThese are called sit-ins or "sitdown strike", and are not particularly uncommon. They happen in many democracies around the world (not at google though).
- hulitu 3y ago[flagged]
- gorbot 3y agoThis comment is confusing. It makes me think that you believe their endgame is actually become the owners of the office they occupied or otherwise gain something. Their goal was to make themselves be heard. Us talking about it right now means it’s working.
- swexbe 3y agoWe’re discussing about a group of google employees. Not about the issue they were protesting.
- rags2riches 3y agoThe actual acts performed in the protest may very well be the goal for some of the protesters. The stated goals are in that case only rationalizations.
- pyuser583 3y agoCommunist countries absolutely used “vocal minorities” as a way to control people. The vocal minority might be organized crime, the Red Guard, or anonymous denunciation. It wasn’t a coincidence that communist countries had massive police forces and widespread crime. They are both parts of the same function.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- zadokshi 3y agoFreedom on full display. Employees free to break their employment contract. Employer free to fire them. Let me guess, you want power to control what people and companies can or can not do? I don’t trust you enough to put you in control of that.
- cad31 3y agoFreedom to profit from war in privacy.
- tsimionescu 3y agoYou would be right if they were fired, but they were arrested by the state. Not so free to protest.
- fleshdaddy 3y agoWell there are limits. You can’t for example protest in my living room or by breaking into the Capitol building. Trespassing can be a form of protest but it’s still illegal.
- tsimionescu 3y agoIf they had broken into the offices after violently clashing with police, or if they were ransacking the place, I would be 100% in favor of arresting them - just like the Jan 6 protesters who attacked the Capitol. Instead, as far as I've seen even from the Daily Wire, these people just walked into the offices of their company's boss (at worst breaking a lock?) and were sitting there without disturbing his papers or breaking his computers or anything violent.
- nh23423fefe 3y agoWhat point are you making? Calling yourself a protester means you can do whatever you want with someone else's property?
- underdeserver 3y ago
- anon291 3y agoYes free to own things that other people cannot appropriate..
- kleton 3y ago"Bring your whole self to work."
- musicale 3y ago"Bring your professional facade to work" is usually better advice.
- HKH2 3y agoYep, be careful what you wish for. It's not exactly congruent with being professional.
- torstenvl 3y agoYour whole self isn't all of your behaviors. It doesn't mean proselytize your religion at work. It doesn't mean engage in sexual activity at work. It doesn't mean spend 1/3 of your time at work asleep. A person can be authentic without being inappropriate.
- givemeethekeys 3y agoSo, just the partial self, then?
- tsimionescu 3y ago> A person can be authentic without being inappropriate. In principle, yes. But when your work collides with your values, that stops being the case.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- rdtsc 3y ago"So we know who to get rid of"
- feverzsj 3y agoThey should've protested outside, not disturbing others.
- cess11 3y agoThat wouldn't be a protest.
- wahnfrieden 3y agoThese posters would prefer all protests be relegated to a closed studio TV channel you can simply avoid ever tuning into, and a state that punishes deviancy from that
- dh2022 3y agoI prefer if the protests are relegated to a TV channel I can simply avoid ever tuning into (like CNN or MSNBC). I am not sure what state you have in mind, but US does not punish deviance from anything.
- tsimionescu 3y agoAs can be seen here, they did punish these protesters. And the House has just passed a resolution saying that the slogan "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" is antisemitic. Many states, such as Texas, require written commitments from all state employees that they will not engage in the BDS movement or other forms of protest against Israel. How are these not a punishment for deviance from the desired positon? Edit: punish, not publish.
- dh2022 3y agoWell, from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free is indeed antisemitic... because Israel separates West Bank (the river) from Gaza (the sea). Wanting Palestine to be free from West Bank to Gaza means that Israeli state be broken up - which is antisemitic.... Denying someone employment because of their political views is not punishment...
- NeverFade 3y agoThey didn't just "protest" their company's work with Israel. They took over company offices, including the office of Google Cloud CEO in Sunnyvale, and refused to vacate them for 9+ hours.
- cvoss 3y agoIt's important to remember, whenever a news headline reads "Y after X", that the headline does not actually claim "Y because of X". I find it a frustrating misdirection by the newspaper to employ such headlines, since they are so easy to misread in that way.
- sdenton4 3y agoYes... That's what protest looks like.
- otterley 3y agoThere are lots of ways to protest, and plenty of them don’t involve impeding others or trespassing on private property to make their point. We have parks and government centers and sidewalks they can do it in. Your right to protest does not supersede the rights of others. And these are (were) employees and it’s quite likely Google already has established mechanisms for hearing employee grievances. Google’s not going to allow a small but vocal and disruptive group to override those existing mechanisms, nor would any serious business.
- saulpw 3y agoIt isn't nice to block the doorway It isn't nice to go to jail There are nicer ways to do it But the nice ways always fail - Malvina Reynolds, "It Isn't Nice" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lWkV2QpgQo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lWkV2QpgQo
- otterley 3y agoIt doesn’t matter. The law is what it is. Breaking the law to get your way isn’t the right way to get things done. Otherwise we’d all be justified in doing it whenever we don’t like something and there would be no point in laws anymore. In a democracy, you can participate in our system and vote to have it changed, though. And that’s the effective way to address these issues.
- justrealist 3y agoOffice bullshit was a ZIRP.
- drak0n1c 3y agoRegardless of your opinion of the Daily Wire, they have an in-depth article with details that the Washington Post omitted. With hyperlinks to each source: https://www.dailywire.com/news/google-employees-occupy-office-of-boss-until-contract-with-israel-is-dropped https://www.dailywire.com/news/google-employees-occupy-offic...
- m1n7 3y agodoesn't matter how "in-depth" it is, it's still the daily wire and not trustworthy
- anon291 3y agoThe only bipartisanship today seems to be the substitution of curiosity for tribalism
- m1n7 3y agobipartisanship between who?
- arrowsmith 3y agoMaybe not, but the DW article includes more photos and video than the WP article, it provides a copy of the original employee letter + list of demands, and it also embeds some tweets from one of the protest's organisers. You can form your opinion from the primary sources.
- uejfiweun 3y agoAll sources have at least a small element of truth to them... it's better to get as many sides as you can and come up with your own conclusion, rather than completely block off certain opinions.
- m1n7 3y agothat's only true as long as you have media that at least tries to inform the public with good journalism. the dw is a fascist publication that only cares about making money off people with misdirected anger by spreading hate. it has no value.
- gorbot 3y agoThey said nimbus was for civilian use only, then time publishes an article saying they are dealing with the IDF directly and have a discount given that Nimbus exists… https://time.com/6966102/google-contract-israel-defense-ministry-gaza-war/ https://time.com/6966102/google-contract-israel-defense-mini...
- m00x 3y agoIt's pretty weak proof. It only says some part of it was billed to the ministry of defense. Who knows what it was used for? It could be their HR, billing, etc.
- tsimionescu 3y ago[flagged]
- arrowsmith 3y ago> the ICJ has found there is a possible case for this This is not true, and is based on a misreading of the ICJ's judgement and of the relevant law. https://rozenberg.substack.com/p/lawyers-letter-based-on-error https://rozenberg.substack.com/p/lawyers-letter-based-on-err...
- tsimionescu 3y agoThat is a lie. Here are the explicit findings: > 72. In these circumstances, the Court considers that the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is at serious risk of deteriorating further before the Court renders its final judgment. > 73. The Court recalls Israel’s statement that it has taken certain steps to address and alleviate the conditions faced by the population in the Gaza Strip. The Court further notes that the Attorney General of Israel recently stated that a call for intentional harm to civilians may amount to a criminal offence, including that of incitement, and that several such cases are being examined by Israeli law enforcement authorities. While steps such as these are to be encouraged, they are insufficient to remove the risk that irreparable prejudice will be caused before the Court issues its final decision in the case. > 74. In light of the considerations set out above, the Court considers that there is urgency, in the sense that there is a real and imminent risk that irreparable prejudice will be caused to the rights found by the Court to be plausible, before it gives its final decision. Basically, based on the facts on the harm coming to civilians in Gaza, and on reports of genocidal rhetoric being used in Israel and investigated by Israeli authorities, they find that there is a real and urgent risk that the citizens of Gaza will be subject to genocide. This is not in any way based on the simple existence of an abstract right to be protected from genocide. It is about finding that there is a real, urgent, risk of genocide happening before the ICJ can issue a final decision. [0] https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192/192-20240126-ord-01-00-en.pdf https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192...
- mikaeluman 3y agoLooking at the details provided by dailywire it's perfectly understandable why these people were arrested. Had it been my workplace I would have wished for the same thing.
- VS1999 3y ago[flagged]
- dingi 3y agoAll the more reason to just do your job an leave. Remember why are you getting paid before engaging in these kind of stupid things.
- thaumasiotes 3y ago> Several Google employees were arrested Tuesday evening at the company’s offices in New York City and Sunnyvale, Calif., after staging sit-ins to protest the tech giant’s work with the Israeli government The obvious question here is "how old were these employees?". The article doesn't even bring it up.
- Arainach 3y agoWhy is that an obvious question?
- greyface- 3y agoVideos of the arrests: https://www.twitch.tv/notech4apartheid/clip/BloodyExquisitePigDogFace-wRpiAtkw4wWAfByl https://www.twitch.tv/notech4apartheid/clip/BloodyExquisiteP... https://twitter.com/taliaotg/status/1780432300548804637 https://twitter.com/taliaotg/status/1780432300548804637
- metadat 3y agoThis is the moment Thomas Kurian showed his true colors, silently hiding behind his security henchman when confronted with peaceful protesters, when he could have ignored them and simply not gone into the office for now. Silence is equivalent to actively stating he sides with Israel and "The Company", Google, who pays him tens of millions of dollars per year in compensation. That's a helluva incentive for someone with Atherton-level property taxes to pay. Oracle is lucky TK took off for Google after he lost the cloud boss battle to Don Johnson in 2019. Also fortunate that Safra Katz (current Oracle CEO, previously vocal supporter of Israel) is smart enough to keep a low profile for the time being.
- metadat 3y agoYeah, there are a lot of [gx]ooglers on this site, so the massive downvotes were not asurprise. I also acknowledge my comment was against site guidelines (not contributing to "curious conversation"). Yet still, I feel compelled to speak my mind because I have direct firsthand knowledge of Thomas Kurian.. and yuck. Nothing is special or surprising about that one. Best wishes to all personkind, M.D. p.s. Even Dang gets downvoted sometimes, although to be fair, he doesn't engage in this sort of thread. *Shrug*
- ionwake 3y agoI have no idea what happened but I always love it when people get cross over improper behaviour such as grey hat work or “sitting protests” at the worlds largest corp … on a website called hackernews
- KingOfCoders 3y agoYou might have a misunderstanding of the term "hacker".
- int_19h 3y agoThe historical hacker culture was not exactly friendly towards large corporations and "suits" in general.
- krapp 3y agoUnfortunately, the historical hacker culture is not the hacker culture for which this forum was created. Watching the culture clashes when expectations meet reality is always a hoot.
- ionwake 3y agoI heard about this community about a decade ago through the respect being paid to a legendary hacker from the (nineties?) I believe so I guess the forum adopted the culture. It sure is as close as I got to them, reading obituary threads, with folks telling tales of yore.
- ionwake 3y ago[flagged]
- cad31 3y agoI am with you but unfortunately the sense of "hacker" here is closer to what it is in "hackaton". A "hackaton" is an event where ivy league students compete to write sloppy code using APIs from different corporations. They also get branded t-shirts and free redbull (paid by said corporations).
- KingOfCoders 3y agoNever understood people who work for an employer with whom they don't agree.
- xeyownt 3y ago[flagged]
- gorbot 3y agoMaybe because they think they could change it while inside? Like so many republican politicians hate big government but work for (Ie get elected to) said government, then try to change it to what they think is better. Or maybe they want to quit and figured going out in a ball of fire would be more effective than resigning?
- xyst 3y agoGolden handcuffs
- VS1999 3y agoIt's pretty simple. I don't agree with any tech company, but I would still like to make enough money to live. I hope that clears it up.
- KingOfCoders 3y agoFound your own company.
- VS1999 3y agoIt's very easy to suggest that to someone else when you don't have to take the risk or do the work.
- KingOfCoders 3y ago"do the work." I have founded three startups and currently work as a self employed consultant and coach.
- VirusNewbie 3y agoYet these clowns happily pay their taxes that end up supporting isreal. What a joke or performative empathy. Good news is there should be some reqs opening up soon in Google Cloud for people looking for work.
- lebean 3y agoI hope so, these protestors are accepting blood money every time a direct deposit from Google hits their bank account or their stocks vest! Surely they'd want to keep their moral integrity intact and quit if their demands are not met.
- drewbug01 3y ago“We should improve society somewhat.” “Yet you participate in society. Curious!”
- 14 3y agoFor once I see a post that needs to be locked as all it is going to do is bring the worst out in HN crowd. I think we are quickly crossing into "Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That tramples curiosity."
- dunekid 3y agoAnd the worst is really horrible. You would think that people who have pretty much all the resources to learn about the genocide is actively promoting the voice of the perpetrator. This for sure is an eye opening incident, if we were to get to AGI one day, what biases it might hold. And by looking at the attitude of those in power, future is looking a bit bleak.
- gataca 3y agoTotally agree that Sudan, Ethiopia, and the Kurdish people aren't getting enough attention by the HN crowd. Why do you think that is?
- inemesitaffia 3y agoJews
- CyberDildonics 2y agoWhat do you mean by this?
- inemesitaffia 2y agoThe difference between the conflict in Palestine and elsewhere is antisemitism. You'd never see a any level of this **** for any conflict unless people are drafted
- dragonwriter 2y ago
- locallost 3y agoCongratulations to people with morals. There's always few of them in the present, but also few of them historically. But we remember them more then people looking the other way out of convenience.
- NeverFade 3y ago[flagged]
- locallost 3y agoI didn't pick any side. Israel has killed tens of thousands of people including a large percentage of children in 6 months. It doesn't matter to me at all what one side "wants" to do. This is what's happening right now.
- edanm 3y ago> By every available poll, the Palestinians want to kill them all. I think that's a big stretch. Many/most Palestinians want "their" land back, and many/most might want Israel gone. But that is not at all the same as saying they want all Israelis killed. Some might want a one-state solution that gives them rights without necessarily infringing on Jews's rights, some might think that most Jews will have a place to go if they get their land back (with the settler-colonialism framing), etc. There are many valid things people can think that aren't "we want to kill all Jews". (I'm purposefully writing Jews and not Israelis, because I assume we both agree that most would explicitly not want to kill the 2 million or so Israeli-Palestinians!)
- creato 3y agoThey might not want to kill them, but the track record of Arab countries in the middle east regarding Jewish population is not good: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_exodus_from_the_Muslim_world#Table_of_the_Jewish_population_in_Muslim_countries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_exodus_from_the_Muslim_... Do you really expect a hypothetical Palestine to be any different?
- rdtsc 3y ago> Anti-Semitism appears to be rampant throughout Google’s workforce. If someone would have told me 5 years ago that in just a few years, Google employees would be accused of anti-semitism, or any -ism, really, I would have never believed it. They were on the frontlines "punching nazis" and fighting rising fascism here in US, and here they are, being accused of anti-semitism, themselves.
- hintymad 3y agoIn recent years the left labels anyone who opposes them nazis. Oh, ANTIFAS are like SS but they are anti-facists. So, I’m not sure that anti-nazis argument holds water
- rdtsc 3y agoIt reminds me of Putin and his excuses for attacking Ukraine -- fighting fascists, of course. How can the Americans oppose that, he is doing exactly what they are doing. They are brothers in arms, really.
- underdeserver 3y agoNot sure how else you would label spraying "Kill all the Jews" in a toilet stall.
- rdtsc 3y agoOh sure, I agree. I am not saying those are not, just that it's so shocking to find it's Googlers.
- underdeserver 3y agoEver since that video 8 years ago of a college kid yelling at a professor at Yale [1], it seemed to me that a non-negligible part of American youth, much of it in highly regarded universities (such as Yale, Harvard, Berkeley and Stanford) does not understand, nor want to understand, nuance and proportionality. You don't protest violence by being violent yourself. Rank-and-file Googlers in the US tend to be young (<30) and from those universities or their like. Certainly seems to be the case in this article. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/3rucs2/yale_sjws_screaming_at_professor_yesterday/ https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/3rucs2/yale_sjws_sc...
- givemeethekeys 3y agoI can see both sides: Yes, Google offices are private property. Yes, Google is an American company - if Google's employees don't agree with an American company serving America and its allies - Israel has been an ally for a long time - then, they should leave for more agreeable pastures. They can even remove Google from their resume once they've found a better resume brand. However, If I were an employee at Google, and my company had begun serving DoD / IDF against my wishes - then, I would have a better chance of changing this from inside the company than from outside. So, speaking out internally against taking on undesirable customers seems like a more effective tactic than quitting. But, by protesting in the way they did, they've likely ensured that they will no longer be inside the company.
- xyst 3y agoAre you suggesting whistleblowing? Or inserting exploits into the project?
- givemeethekeys 3y agoNo, that is the kind of thing that gets you fired and arrested and possibly worse.
- drak0n1c 3y agoThere are more reasonable, honorable, and effective ways to persuade your company of an idea than ambushing your boss with an office occupation, leaking to the press, or criminal sabotage (possibly treasonous given US and other allies use of the product).
- xyst 3y agoI wonder what it would take to insert the equivalent of a “thermal vent” into the ”all-encompassing cloud solution” for the Israeli government. Maybe give the Israeli government private cloud the “us-east1” treatment during critical Israeli milops. Losing a $1.2B contract for Amazon or Google due to subterfuge is nothing. Wonder how the US government would respond though, especially since Israeli government is one of their most highly regarded allies (highest amount of foreign aide, critical trade partners). Would the people who inserted exploit into Project Nimbus be prosecuted for espionage?
- int_19h 3y agoGiven that Mossad likes to abduct or assassinate those who crossed Israel somehow, they'd just need to look the other way when that happens.
- throwaway4good 3y agoThis shouldn't be flagged.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- ronhav3 3y ago[flagged]